


like a dream that you can't quite place

by palaces_outofparagraphs



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Not A Lot Of Plot, One Sided Attraction, Sisterly Love, Stream of Consciousness, angelica making bad decisions, angelica pining for alex, angelica trying her best, denial angst and mistakes, implied fwbness, kind of, thomas jefferson is not helping matters, trying to solve her sadness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-07
Updated: 2017-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-29 00:17:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10842477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palaces_outofparagraphs/pseuds/palaces_outofparagraphs
Summary: angelica, losing herself. angelica, trying to find herself in all the wrong places. angelica, not sure where it all went wrong - but it's for eliza. always, for eliza (and that should make it okay but it doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't)





	like a dream that you can't quite place

She doesn’t know when she so thoroughly stopped giving a damn about things. She doesn’t know when she stopped paying attention to what she had always considered the baseline of her morality, doesn’t know when she stopped trying, doesn’t know at what point she lost herself, lost who she was, and no matter what she refuses to believe that she - Angelica Schuyler, Angelica  _ Schuyler -  _ has lost some of herself for a boy, a stupid, idiot boy with those eyes, but if she traces it back she supposes it starts there, or maybe ends there, maybe everything starts and end there, stupid, idiot,

_ Alex - _

Alex, who  _ isn’t hers. _

\--

Because it’s not that she doesn’t care anymore. She does, so much that most days she feels like she’s going to burst. It’s just that the thing she cares about most - the person, more like - or who she wants to care about - she can’t. She can’t can’t can’t have him and she should stop wanting and she should stop dreaming and she should stop wishing for it and looking at his eyes because he’s  _ Eliza’s - _

_ Eliza - _

the best thing in her life - the best thing in anyone’s life, really, but the best thing in her life before. Eliza, who she would be long gone without. Eliza, who always says “ _ my big sister’s the only one holding me together _ ” and everyone laughs (there’s something very small and endearing about a college student referring to another college student as her  _ big sister  _ but it works, when it’s Eliza; anything works when it’s Eliza) and she laughs too but she knows, deep down, that really, the opposite is true. That Eliza is good and kind and centered, inherently; but all the good in Angelica is what she has gleaned off of her sister. That Eliza thinks it’s the other way around but it isn’t. Angelica knows that in anything good in her came from Eliza. 

_ There isn’t anything good left in you anymore - _

\--

The worst part is not that she loves Alex and she can’t have Alex. The worst part is not that she pushed him away with her own hands, that she caught Eliza’s eye across the ballroom and realized that she could not take away what was rightfully her sister’s (that Eliza deserved more in this world than Angelica would.) The worst part is not that Alexander is still in her life, every day, that she sees him with Eliza, that the contradctions of it all - her overwhelming, almost painful love for Alex, if she dare call it that, which she doesn’t, fighting up against her assuaging, all-encompassing love for Eliza, which is the only certain thing in her life these days - the absolute, unwavering need to take care of Eliza, to keep her safe from anything that will hurt her; mixed with that awful, needling, unforgettable whatever-you-call-it for Alex -

none of it was the worst part, even though it was enough to drive her insane, enough to fold her mind in on itself. The worst part was not  being able to tell Eliza about it.

Because,  _ Eliza.  _ Eliza, her sister, her best friend. Eliza, who looks after her. Who has always looked after her. Eliza, the embodiment of good in the world; the embodiment of good in Angelica’s world. Eliza. Her sister, - she knows her like her own mind, and vice-versa - but this is the one battle Angelica cannot share with her. Tempest-tossed and crawling to the shore, ripped limb for limb gasping for breath but she can’t ever tell Eliza. Because Eliza, wide eyed and open handed, would give and give and give until she had nothing left at all if it meant Angelica’s happiness.  _ here take him here take it here take my whole heart here here here angelica anything for you _

But then there would be a quiet hollowness in Eliza’s eyes. And as much as the world hurts these days, she cannot think of anything worse than Eliza’s eyes going quiet, Eliza going sad. Eliza, putting herself second, letting herself get passed over. And so it ends up that she cannot even want for him without feeling guilt needling at every part of her. There is no possibility of a happy ending here.

At the end of the day, Angelica knows she can live without Alex. It hurts like hell but she can live with a broken heart, people have always done it. But the possibility of living without Eliza - or, worse, living with a broken version of Eliza - goes beyond a broken heart. It is the unthinkable. 

And so she starts losing herself.

\--

Which means, really, that it’s Tom.

Tom who she loved, once, or pretended to; whatever you call a night in Paris halfway through senior year. Tom, who was nothing more than fun. Tom, who was a close friend, maybe. Tom, who was bad for her - who got into her head, who got into her heart, who marred her, in a way, who hurt her, in a way, Tom, who she knew she had to get away from (but who she ended up at college with - of course - and she thought it would be okay, because, after all, Eliza was there.) And it’s a big campus, she’d reasoned with herself. I never have to see him if I don’t want to.

And there she is, halfway through February - God, it was always February, wasn’t it? - knocking on Tom’s door.

“Angelica Schuyler,” he says when he opens it, and it’s like he’s been expecting her. “Here again?”

“Here again,” she responds, because she’s been expecting this too. He’s all of her bad points, he’s her worst habit, he’s her rock-bottom, and so here she is. “And I’m not interested in talking.”

“You’re in luck, darling,” he drawls, stepping aside so she can come in. “I never have been.”

\--

Later, when it is near dawn, he opens the sliding door to his balcony and they go out. She sits against the metal railings, feeling them press under her skin, feels the cold pre-dawn winds settle into her hair. 

For the first time in a long time, though, she isn’t thinking about Alex. Which is as close she’s gotten to  _ happy _ in a long time. 

He lights a cigarette, offers her one.

“You’re going to kill yourself like that,” she says, tilting her head back and looking up at him. He grins, wryly. Stupid, idiot Tom. Rock bottom Tom.

“Why’d you come here, Angelica?” he inquires. The sun hasn’t risen yet, but it will. She’s going to have to face the rest of the day eventually, but time seems somehow stoppered here, on this balcony. It’s freezing cold, still pretty dark, the light of his cigarette brighter than the sky. The cold of the railings hurts against her skin. She catalogues all the feelings, all the thoughts, all the emotions, saving them for later. Wondering if she can tell Eliza this. Eliza will know something is wrong. But she can never -  _ never never never -  _ tell her.

“I just needed a break,” she responds, in time. “I...just needed to forget.”

“And what does a princess like you need to forget?”

God, she hates him. But he makes her laugh - says stupid shit that makes her laugh, even though if anyone else said it she would hate them. She does kind of hate him. But not really. Which is the problem, probably. “Couldn’t even start to go into it, Tom,” she says.  _ Tom, _ she’s the only one who calls him Tom. He’s Thomas to everyone else; Jefferson to people who hate him. (Alex calls him Jefferson. Alex hates him, so much, which is maybe, in ways she pretended not to see last night, half the reason she’s here.) “There’s a lot going on.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” He folds his hand over the cigarette and drops down next to her, looking at her - looking her in the eye. She thinks of his eyes, of Alex’s eyes, of what might be reflected in her own, she doesn’t want to know. Thomas was her friend, first, before everything went crazy between them. He still is, sort of. She tries not to think about that now. Tries not to think of his eyes, how in some twisted way she does give a damn about him. Tries not to think of someone else’s eyes. Someone who’s with her sister - her  _ sister  _ \- at this very moment.

She shakes her head. “I have made,” she says, because time doesn’t really exist here on this balcony, because it’s not yet dawn, because, well, it’s  _ Tom, _ “a complete and utter mess of my life.”

“Somehow, I don’t buy that.”

“It’s a mess. I don’t know where to go with it anymore.” she closes her eyes. “Tom, I just don’t think there are any more solutions.”

“So, you came here.” She can  _ hear  _ his stupid wry grin. “Nice easy fix there, princess.”

“Shut up.” The first rays of sunlight are hitting his eyes, and it makes her smile. Sometimes he’s still her best friend. Which is terrible, she knows. “I should go.”

“Stay,” he says, somewhat languidly, and part of her wants to. But the sun is coming up - day is breaking - and she knows there is only so long she can afford to have her life sprawled in this many directions. There is a creeping feeling that she made a mistake, even if she did end up stopping it from going too far, ultimately deciding she had to retain some dignity. But still. The second she crossed the threshold of his door was too far.

Knows that she will not find the happiness she is looking for here. That maybe, she won’t find it anywhere.

\--

And much later, Alexander breaks Eliza. And Angelica thinks that maybe the odds were against her and her sister from the beginning. Wonders how it is possible that she could have sacrificed everything, given everything up, and still it all comes out so wrong.

She holds her while she cries. And she thinks that in the end, all she and Eliza have is each other. That in the end, she is the only place she will find her happiness.

  
  



End file.
